Pinterest Tracking – How to Stop Pinterest from Tracking You Across Websites
Like other social media channels, Pinterest tracks your behavior and uses it as part of its advertising platform, known as Promoted Pins. Other social channels like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram also track user behavior. The data is aggregated, so no individual user is identifiable to anyone. Advertisers can select groups of users to show their Promoted Pins based on behaviors, demographics, and interests,
What Other Social Media Channels Track You?
iOS and Android devices both have an advertising identifier that is unique to each device. Advertisers, including social media channels like Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram read that identifier and use it to target ads at device owners based on their activity on their phone.
What is Pinterest Ads Personalization?
Pinterest Ads Personalization is a user behavior and interest tracking on Pinterest and on third-party websites for the sake of customizing content and advertisements. Pinterest can track the websites users visit and the Pins they save. It uses that information to customize the content shown to back on Pinterest. It also sells aggregate data of user behavior to advertisers, so they tailor their Promoted Pin to users who are likely to engage with their content or buy their products.
About Pinterest
Pinterest is a major social media channel that filed for its initial public offering (IPO) last month. The Pinterest IPO was valued at over twelve billion USD. The highly visual social media channel is sometimes described as an online scrapooking site. It has over 250 million daily active users. Pinterest users are considered valuable social media users because they are associated with a strong shopping intention. They use the site to organize future purchases. Pinterest users in the United States are mostly female, although globally the gender split is more even.
Pinterest gathers data through a number of vectors. Pinterest gathers information about user interests and behaviors though use of the site and features such as the Save button. So, Pinterest tracks which Pins or categories of Pins you save to boards. If you don’t change the advertising permissions in your account, then Pinterest can allow business partners to farm your information on Pinterest to serve Personalized Ads to you.
Any website that uses a Pinterest Save button or the Pinterest widget can send information about your interaction with that website, back to Pinterest. Your actions on the third-party websites are also used to choose what content is shown to you in your newsfeed. Have you ever noticed that you were shopping for a new sofa online and soon after, when you return to Pinterest, much of the content and the Promoted Pins are about sofas and couches? That is Ad Personalization at work.
Pinterest collects data bout you even if you don’t use Pinterest. If there is a Pinterest cookie set on your computer, Pinterest can gather data about your interests and off-site behaviors, even if you don’t have an account. If and when you do sign up for Pinterest, then that data is used to suggest topics for you to follow. This data persists for thirty-days.
How to Turn Off Pinterest Tracking -Desktop Pinterest
- Login to Pinterest
- Click the three dots in the upper right corner of your Pinterest screen
- The account menu opens up
- Click Settings
- Click Privacy & data
- Uncheck the boxes next to “Use sites you visit to improve which recommendations and ads you see” and “Use information from our partners to improve which recommendations and ads you see”
- Click Done
How to Turn Off Pinterest Tracking – Mobile App
- Login to Pinterest mobile app
- Tap your profile icon in the lower right corner of the Pinterest app
- The account menu opens up
- Select Edit Settings
- Scroll down to the Personalization section of the settings page
- Toggle the buttons to “off” that are next to “Use sites you visit to improve which recommendations and ads you see” and “Use information from our partners to improve which recommendations and ads you see”
You can also delete the cookie that Pinterest saves on your computer. If you choose to delete it you will have to login again, as your laptop won’t know your account name.